About to finish Burnt offerings but slight issue starting skinsaw murders

[Josh Herrmann]

I am GMing Rise of the Runelords and next session my Players will be able to finish up Thistletop. Unfortunately an issue has crept up that may cause problems for the next book. At the beginning of the skinsaw murders the PC's receive notes with the name of the character that Aldern Foxglove is obsessed with on it. The only problem is the character that i had set up for foxgloves obsession died in Thistletop last session. He wrote up a new character and i worked him into the party. But now i am not sure what to do about the notes. Could they still be addressed to character that died or should i direct it towards a different party member. I am a little bummed because i had roleplayed some good encounters between foxglove and the character that died and my player started getting weird vibes from foxglove. Just curious what you folks might suggest i do. i am a little stumped on how to proceed.

[John Whyte]

The easy answer I can think of is Aldern now blames the party for her death. Use the wrathful notes at party leader hinting at some terrible sin.

Also what happened to the dead body? It should be lovingly staged at the manor complete w custom haunt.

[feytharn]

If the new character obviously takes the place of the old character, he might develope a murderous obsession (especially if the obsession for the first character was along the love / soulmate / idol line) for the new character just for being where [character n#1] should be.

[Misroi]

Yeah, I'd go with John Whyte's solution - if there was someone who was antagonistic towards Aldern, I'd have him fixate on that person as the reason his original obsession target died.

[Latrecis]

How public is the information about lost pc's death? Has it been reported in town? Has there been a memorial service or any other public acknowledgement? Aldern is not gifted with omniscience - he won't know what happened at least not right away and in any detail unless that is made public somehow. He could initially address the missing pc and then get angry as knowledge of that pc's fate becomes more widely known. This is a good reason have some time pass between the two Books - if Book 2 doesn't start until a couple weeks after Book 1, there's time for the story to become known. If there is "fault" to be placed on one of the survivors and that is known outside the pc group, Aldern can be wrathful at that character or Aldern can simply blame the party healer or party leader (if either role is well established.) Alden could simply blame the entire group and you could make the obsession haunts universal - affect the whole party.

[Skeld]

I came here to basically say the same thing as John Whyte.

-Skeld

[John Whyte]

With Latrecis comment,
The ending XP of book 1 isn't the same as the starting XP of book 2 so it's sidequest time. I rocked up a missing merchant who was Alderns first victim but all signs pointed to brinestone marsh goblins. Took the PCs 8 days, the fighter got to show off cleave, and the part arrived back to some death at the mill, and some confidence tricksters.

[dragonhunterq]

John Whyte wrote:

The easy answer I can think of is Aldern now blames the party for her death. Use the wrathful notes at party leader hinting at some terrible sin.

Also what happened to the dead body? It should be lovingly staged at the manor complete w custom haunt.

This happened to me and this is how I dealt with it. Only thing is I picked on just one player though. I just added a bit here or there about how he 'failed her' and when the party created a memorial to all the people who died in the goblin raid I had it vandalised with all other names scratched out and her name dug deeper as if repeatedly gone over again and again with a claw.

It doesn't matter which PC, it doesn't even need to be entirely justifiable or fair, it just needs to be someone who survived when his original obsession didn't. But his insanity needs a focus I think. Just aiming it at the party in general might not work as well.

The party just defeated Aldern, and I am very pleased with how it panned out.

[Josh Herrmann]

Thanks for the ideas folks. The character that died does have a brother in the party. i think i will direct the rage at the surviving sibling.